Doing Away with Checks and Balances

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Increasing Executive Power Executive power is the hidden root that lies beneath many of todays most important news stories, from warrantless wiretapping to who has the power to end the Iraq war. He has won a Pulitzer Prize for his reporting on this aspect of the Bush-Chaney administration. Charlie Savage is the author of Takeover: The Return of the Imperial Presidency and the Subversion of American Democracy. He covers national legal affairs for the Boston Globe.
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The Impact of Influenza The influenza virus is more likely to be transmitted during the winter and each year seems to bring new strains of the illness. Our guest, Dr. Benjamin Kruskal, Pediatrics and Pediatric Infectious Disease Director at Harvard, explains the best ways people can protect themselves from falling victim to winter colds or the flu.
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Get Takeover At Amazon.com From Pulitzer Prize winning journalist Charlie Savage - an investigation into how the Bush-Cheney administration has seized vast powers for the presidency to permanently alter the constitutional balance of American democracy. TAKEOVER reveals the machinations behind the headlines and lays bare a hidden agenda three decades in the making, one that links warrantless wiretapping and Bush's judicial nominees, torture and Cheney's energy task force, the faith-based initiative and the imprisonment of citizens without trial. It tells the story of how a group of true believers, led by Cheney, set out to establish near-monarchical executive powers that, in the words of one conservative critic, will lie around like a loaded weapon for any future president.

Guest(s) Appearing on this Episode

Charlie Savage Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Charlie Savage is a Washington correspondent for the Boston Globe. He covers national legal affairs with a focus on issues related to counterterrorism and executive power. A native of Fort Wayne, Indiana, Savage graduated summa cum laude from Harvard College in 1998. He began his career as a local government and politics reporter for the Miami Herald. Savage later earned a master's degree from Yale Law School while on a Knight Foundation journalism fellowship. He joined the Boston Globe's Washington bureau in the fall of 2003. Savage's work on the Bush-Cheney administration's signing statements and other efforts to expand presidential power has been widely recognized. In addition to the 2007 Pulitzer Prize for National Reporting, he has received the American Bar Association's Silver Gavel Award and the Gerald R. Ford Prize for Distinguished Reporting on the Presidency. Savage lives in Washington, D.C., with his wife, the journalist Luiza Ch. Savage, and their son. Click Here to Visit His Website

Dr. Ben Kruskal Ben Kruskal is a board-certified pediatrician and pediatric infectious disease specialist. In addition to his busy pediatric primary care practice, Dr. Kruskal directs the Infection Control and Travel Medicine program at Harvard Vanguard Medical Associates, a large multi-site, multi-specialty group practice in the Greater Boston metropolitan area. He is also the chief of pediatrics at his Harvard Vanguard office. Dr. Kruskal graduated from New York University School of Medicine in 1988 with a PhD in cell biology, in addition to his medical degree. He completed a pediatric residency and pediatric infectious diseases fellowship at Boston Medical Center in Boston, MA. After completing his training, Dr. Kruskal was a Charles Janeway Scholar in Child Health Research and practiced pediatric infectious diseases at The Children’s Hospital, and subsequently at Massachusetts General Hospital. His research was supported by the National Institutes of Health, the Cancer Research Institute, and the Pediatric AIDS Foundation. He is currently participating in 3 research projects sponsored by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Professional organizations in which he participates include the American Academy of Pediatrics, the Pediatric Infectious Diseases Society, the Infectious Diseases Society of America, and the Society for Healthcare Epidemiology of America. Click here to read his blog